CeCASt Seminar

"Where there's breast, there's no brain": Ghana's social contract and elections 2024 in context

Presenter: Charles Prempeh (PhD)

Abstract:

Ghana's 2024 elections qualify precisely as unprecedented in the country’s experimentation with liberal democracy. For the first time, the presidential elections featured two people from the Northern Region as presidential candidates of Ghana's duopolitical system. For the first time, a Muslim contested on the ticket of a party with a strong historic support base in a predominantly Christian South. For the first time, the outcome of  the presidential election saw former President JDM Mahama staging a comeback as Ghana's presidential 'ababio'. For the first time in a competitive election in Ghana's fourth Republic, the previous ruling party with the slightest majority in a hung Parliament has been reduced to what could be called a picturesque in politics. For a very long time in Ghana's political trajectories, the country is in the helm of a political figure who could act in the full capacity of presidentialism. With all these, the focus of my presentation is to answer the question: To what extent does the breast of life intersect with socio-historic context to consolidate Ghana's social contract as a determinant of the country’s 2024 elections? The presentation will leverage the fecundity of interdisciplinary scholarship to address this question.